Falling Kingdoms - Prologue + 3 chapters

Chapter 2

PAELSIA

Jonas collapsed to his knees and stared with horror at the ornate dagger sticking out of Tomas's throat. Tomas moved his hand as if to try to pull it out, but he couldn't manage it. Shaking, Jonas curled his hand around the hilt. It took effort to pull it free. Then he clamped his other hand down over the wound. Hot red blood gushed from between his fingers.

      Felicia screamed behind him. "Tomas, no! Please!"

      The life faded from Tomas's eyes with every slowing beat of his heart.

      Jonas's thoughts were jumbled and unclear. It felt as if this moment froze in time for him as his brother's life drained away.

      A wedding. There was a wedding today. Felicia's wedding. She'd agreed to marry a friend of theirs-Paulo. They'd jokingly given him a hard time when they announced their engagement a month ago. At least, before they welcomed him into their family with open arms.

      A big celebration was planned unlike anything their poor village would see again for a very long time. Food, drink...and plenty of Felicia's pretty friends for the Agallon brothers to choose from to help forget their daily troubles carving out an existence for their family in a dying land like Paelsia. The boys were the best of friends-and unbeatable in anything they attempted together.

      Until now.

      Panic swelled in Jonas's chest and he looked frantically around at the swarm of locals for someone to help. "Can't something be done? Is there a healer here?"

      His hands were slick with Tomas's blood. His brother's body convulsed and he made a sickening gurgling sound as more blood gushed from his mouth.

      "I don't understand." Jonas's voice broke. Felicia clutched his arm, her wails of panic and grief deafening. "It happened so fast. Why? Why did this happen?"

      His father stood helplessly nearby, his face grief-stricken but stoic. "It's fate, son.

      "Fate?" Jonas spat out, rage blazing bright inside him. "This is not fate! This was not meant to be. This-this was done at the hands of a Auranian royal who considers us dirt beneath his feet."

      Paelsia had been in steady decline for generations, the land slowly wasting away, while their closest neighbors continued to live in luxury and excess, refusing them aid, refusing them even the right to hunt on their overstocked land when it was their fault in the first place that Paelsia lacked sufficient resources to feed its people. It had been the harshest winter on record. The days were tolerable, but the nights were frigid within the thin walls of their cottage. Dozens, at least, had frozen to death in their small homes or starved.

      No one died from starvation or exposure to the elements in Auranos. The inequality had always sickened Jonas and Tomas. They hated Auranians-especially the royals. But it had been a formless and nameless hate, a random, overall distaste for a people Jonas had never been acquainted with before.

      Now his hatred had substance. Now it had a name.

      He stared down at the face of his older brother. Blood coated Tomas's tanned skin and lips. Jonas's eyes stung, but he forced himself not to cry. Tomas had to see him strong right now. He always insisted that his kid brother be strong. Even with only four years separating them, that's how he'd raised Jonas to be ever since their mother died ten years ago.

      Tomas had taught him everything he knew-how to hunt, how to swear, how to behave around girls. Together they'd provided for their family. They'd stolen, they'd poached, they'd done whatever it took to survive while others in their village wasted away.

      "If you want something," Tomas had always said, "you have to take it. Because nobody's ever going to give it to you. Remember that, little brother."

      Jonas remembered. He'd always remember.

      Tomas had stopped twitching and the blood-so much blood-had stopped flowing so quickly over Jonas's hands.

      There was something in Tomas's eyes, past the pain. It was outrage.

      Not only for the unfairness of his murder at the hands of a Auranian lord. No...also at the unfairness of a life spent fighting every day-to eat, to breathe, to survive. And how had they wound up this way?

      A century ago, the Paelsian chief of the time had gone to the sovereigns of Limeros and Auranos, bordering lands to the north and south, and asked for help. Limeros declined assistance, saying that they had enough to contend with getting their own people back on their feet after a recently halted war with Auranos. Prosperous Auranos, however, struck an agreement with Paelsia. They subsidized the planting of vineyards over all the fertile farmland in Paelsia-land that could have been used to grow crops to feed its people and livestock. Instead, they promised to import Paelsian wine at favorable prices, which would in turn enable Paelsia to import Auranos crops at equally favorable prices. This would help both country's economies, the then king of Auranos said, and the naive Paelsian chieftain shook hands on the deal.

      But the bargain had a time limit. After fifty years, the set prices on imports and exports would expire. And expire they had. Now Paelsians could no longer afford to import Auranian food-not with the falling price of their wine since Auranos was their only customer and could ruthlessly set the cost, which they did, ever lower and lower. Paelsia lacked the ships to export to other kingdoms across the Silver Sea, and austere Limeros in the north was devout in its worship of a goddess who had frowned on drunkenness. The rest of the land continued to slowly die as it had for decades. And all Paelsians could do was watch it fade away.

      The sound of his sister's sobs on the day that should be the happiest of her life broke Jonas's heart.

      "Fight," Jonas whispered to his brother. "Fight for me. Fight to live."

      No, Tomas seemed to convey as the remaining light left his eyes. He couldn't speak. His larynx had been sliced clean through by the Auranian's blade. Fight for Paelsia. For all of us. Don't let this be the end. Don't let them win.

      Jonas fought not to let out the sob he felt deep in his heart but failed. He wept, a broken and unfamiliar sound to his own ears. And a dark, bottomless rage filled him where grief had so quickly carved out a deep, black hole.

      Lord Aron Lagaris would pay for this.

      And the fair-haired girl-Princess Cleiona. She stood by with a cold and amused smirk on her beautiful face and watched her friend murder Tomas. "I swear I'll avenge you, Tomas," Jonas managed through clenched teeth. "This is only the beginning."

      His father touched his shoulder and Jonas tensed.

      "He's gone, my son."

      Jonas finally pulled his trembling, bloody hands away from his brother's ravaged throat. He'd been making promises to someone whose spirit had already departed for the everafter. Only Tomas's shell remained.

      Jonas looked up at the cloudless blue sky above the market and let the harsh cry of grief escape his throat. A golden hawk flew from its perch on his father's wine stall above them.